” I don’t know one single woman who wants to be famous for having been assaulted” – Chimamanda Adichie on #MeToo (video)

Nigerian author and feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke at the Frankfurt book fair on Tuesday and touched on the #MeToo movement.

Adichie said at the opening of the world’s biggest publishing event:

All over the world today women are speaking up. Their stories are still not really heard.

Women are still invisible. Women’s experiences are still invisible.

A year after the #MeToo movement went viral and ignited a global discussion about sexual harassment, Adichie said there was much work left to be done.

It is time for us to pay more than lip service to the fact that women’s stories are for everyone.

We know from studies that women read books by men and women. But men read books by men. It is time for men to read women.

In a thinly veiled reference to US judge Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial confirmation to the Supreme Court despite accusations of sexual misconduct, Adichie slammed the tendency not to believe victims of such assaults.

She said:

We seem to live in a world where many people believe large numbers of women can simply wake up one day and make up stories about having been assaulted.

I know many women who want to be famous. I don’t know one single woman who wants to be famous for having been assaulted.